Tech Guru’s Top Five Tips to Speed up your Wi-Fi Now that You’re Working from Home

March 23, 2020

Zoom calls lagging?
Pages loading slowly? Wheels
spinning? Your five-year-old wireless
router might not be up to the task of handling today’s bandwidth hungry apps especially
when you and the entire family are at home all using the internet!

These five tips will help increase your wireless speeds so
you can work more efficiently and effectively at home.

Skip the Wi-FI and Direct Connect

Funny enough, our first tip is to skip Wi-Fi altogether and direct-connect
to your internet connection with an ethernet cable. This is also a handy way to do what us
techies do to isolate bandwidth and internet problems. If you’re having internet trouble, one way
you can rule out if the problem is with your Wi-Fi or with your provider is to connect
directly with an ethernet cable. Readily
available, and inexpensive, you might find using an ethernet cable is your best
bet for the most stable and reliable internet connectivity.

The reality is that Wi-Fi is not as fast as good old trusty
wires. So, if you have multiple people
using your wireless network (think kids streaming Disney+ and two people on
Zoom calls), it may be getting overburdened.
Thus, a direct ethernet connection would solve that issue. For example, I have a 1gb Comcast internet
connection at home but Wi-Fi at its best can only handle 400-500mb while an
ethernet cable can easily do 1gb plus.
So, try an ethernet cable!

Move Closer to Your Router

Consider the location of your wireless router. If it’s buried in a cabinet or under a desk, its
signal is getting blocked by more obstacles than necessary. Get it out on top and ideally with as few
obstacles as possible between your devices and your wireless router. Also, try to get it closer to the devices
that need to get online. This could mean
getting a longer ethernet cable and moving your router further away from your
modem.

Pause Data-Hungry Sync Apps

There are apps that can really hog a lot of bandwidth, especially
file sync apps like Dropbox and OneDrive.
If you have just dropped a ton of files into a synchronized folder,
these apps will eat up all available bandwidth sending those files to the
cloud. That’s a great thing to have run
overnight, but not when you’re on a Zoom call with your colleagues. Hit pause on Dropbox or OneDrive to
temporarily stop the sync and then turn it back on when you are done with your
Zoom call.

Update Your Router’s Software

If you have logged-in and managed your router before, these next
tips are for you. If not, check with the
documentation that came with your device for how to do this or talk to the
techie in your life. First, upgrading
the firmware on your router is like upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 10 and can
bring important security and performance enhancements. If you haven’t upgraded the firmware lately,
now is a great time to do that. Also,
consider changing the password on your wireless network to kick out any
unwanted leaches who have gained access.
(Note that you will need to rejoin the wireless network from all
connected devices if you do this.) Finally,
if you are in a building with lots of other wireless networks, consider changing
the channel of the device to help reduce interference and increase the
likelihood that your router’s signal can get through.

Get a New Wireless Router

If all else fails, and especially if your wireless router is
more than three years old, consider replacing it altogether. Powerful new wireless networking technology
called mesh wireless can deliver strong wireless signals throughout your home
with no additional wiring needed. Two
examples are Nest Wi-Fi and Amplifi. We’ve
tested and used Nest Wi-Fi and love it.
It’s made by Google but works with all devices. It’s easy to manage and is super-fast and
reliable.

Don’t Forget to Reboot!

And, and have to mention that sometimes the best remedy is
simply a reboot of your networking gear so don’t forget to try that before
anything else!

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